topic Re: tracking for US sellers in Selling

tracking for US sellers

dylan11235813 — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 03:15:40 GMT

I get a notification about how in the USA they need to have tracking on 90 or 95% of sales. I only sell within Australia so why am I being told this (as a notification on my dashboard) and will it be coming to Australia?

Rather than a tracking number has anyone seen anything about implanting tracking devices in parcels? Self powered using the phone network and GPS

Re: tracking for US sellers

digital*ghost — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 05:33:16 GMT

The notification just pops up by default for everyone, I'd say. A lot of sellers list on the US site, or at least sell there, so the standards for TRS may affect them.

It's not really a new requirement, though, as for about the last 5 years US sellers have had to upload tracking on at least 90% of their transactions to qualify for TRS, so the change is just increasing it to 95%, and if they have acheived TRS then drop down to 90%, it appears they'll have a small grace period to bring it back up to 95% without losing TRS (I'm guessing that based on what the notification says, anyway).

I'll never say never in so far as eBay is concerned, they certainly have a yen for tracking, but that kind of requirement would be a bit more difficult to successfully acheive the goal here (i.e. get as many sellers as possible using tracked postage) due the cost of registered post on large letters. (If AP could think about introducing a cheap method that at least provides a delivered scan at the point of delivery, things might be different - wouldn't have to include full tracking, SOD or insurance).

Re: tracking for US sellers

dylan11235813 — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 06:28:52 GMT

Thanks for the info. I thought it was for everyone in the USA (regardless of rating). Reading it again though it says for TRS.

Registered post is almost $4 now (for a large letter it is $9), which brings me to the second point about adding a premade tracker embedded into everything. I haven't looked into it though and thought maybe someone else had. I think it would be a lot cheaper than any tracking AusPost has, the only problem would be power. Small circuits can be powered off background radiation.

Sure that $4 covers up to $100 insurance (which should be about $1., it is that for each extra $100 anyway). So basically $3 is payed to get a signiture. In terms of postage all I care about is if an order reaches it's destination, $3 for someone to beep the horn out the front of my house is quite excessive.

I have never had a registered post item go missing so even at $1/$100 it seems to me a bit much.

Re: tracking for US sellers

digital*ghost — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 06:45:38 GMT

I've spent somewhere between 1-2K on registered labels in the last few years, usually buying in boxes of 50 to save a few cents. How many INRs it's saved me from is incalculable though - it could be none, it could be a couple hundred... (I tend to add it to under 250g letters that are either irreplaceable and/or valued in excess of $40, otherwise I use parcels). In all that time, I've had just one officially go missing (others were ultimately delivered up to 4 weeks later) - I was compensated the grand total of $23 (the buyer chose registered post on that one), and the AP rep decided to advise me that in future, I should use tracked and insured postage...uhh, isn't that what registered is?

Insurance is usually $1.50 per $100, though on parcels I pay $1 with the B250 membership.

Except for international parcels, they charge $9.60 for the first hundred and then I think it's $2~something for each additional $100.